Residents of Evergreen Village deserve better

Once again flooding at Evergreen Village Mobile Home Park has caused its evacuation.

This round of flooding leaves DeKalb County in a way to deal with the flooding never before available to us.

In late December 2012, state and federal emergency management grants were awarded to the county. These grant dollars will be used to clean up the area, and also help to relocate the residents that live there.

The people living at Evergreen Village deserve better. We as a county are very fortunate that no serious injuries or deaths have occurred because of the conditions of the homes.

This problem should have been dealt with years ago. We had money for the courthouse expansion and apparently for the jail expansion. We have money for buildings, but not our citizens.

Let’s use this opportunity to our benefit and that of the people living there and begin the process of finding them safe housing so we don’t have to put them back into these flooded homes, many of which may not be habitable anymore because of the flooding.

Please demand immediate action. Do not let us be led by the wrong people down this path of nothing getting done.

We as a county should be ashamed of how this whole process has taken place. Our administrators over the years have had opportunities to rid us of this sore. Now is the time for action. Demand action from those responsible, or demand changes.

The hardships that these taxpaying citizens have endured should have ended years ago. We all just sit back and do nothing, unless it is in our “backyards,” then we want to fight.

This is your “backyard.” Do something so that the people who live there do not have to move back in after the floodwaters recede.

Please call your County Board members and urge them to cut through the “red tape” and get this project started and completed.

Take a moment to write to our senators and representatives in Washington and Springfield, and urge them to help us cut through the “red tape.” I hope that I have said enough to inspire you all to take action.

I’m reminded of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley when he tore up Meigs Field. Where there is a will there is a way.